Exclusive
by Jackie-O'-Lantern
Summary: Sometimes she wondered how she got mixed up in all this – she wasn't clever like the Batman, fast like the Flash, fearless like the Green Lantern or strong like Superman. She was simple, loyal and unbelievably afraid. Richard/Lois Clark/OC


**A/N: This is a Clark/SupermanXOC story. It is completely AU, twisting around the whole DC universe to better fit the movie Superman Returns.**

I'd love some constructive criticism

xoxo

**Jackie**

I own nothing

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**THE START - GOTHAM  
**

_She floats in suspended animation – watching bits of debris drift by her tattered body. The container she's trapped in creaks loudly causing more sea water to leak through and devour the remaining pockets of air. _

_It's supposed to hurt to die but all she can feel is raw unadulterated fear. _

The alarm blares loudly through the murky dark cave causing the young woman to wake up from her cloudy nightmare.

Beginnings were always messy and strange - reflecting the way we were brought into the world, screaming and covered in blood unaware and petrified of the new. The young red head wasn't sure where her story began - maybe when she found out her father was a crooked cop, when her mother remarried, when she graduated her journalism degree or her first day as a reporter. Maybe the first line of her story began when she shook Bruce Wayne's hand or the first time she stepped into the Batcave. Life had a million starting points and even as a writer she wasn't really sure how to eloquently start the story.

So instead it began in a dark cave underneath Gotham on a bleak April night; a day with little to no importance.

She had just woken up from an old memory that had been romping around her brain for weeks - one that she couldn't erase. Yawning she brushes back her short copper hair and mumbles incoherently.

"Bad dream?" a voice muses beside her making her groan "don't even ask; this chair is insanely uncomfortable. I bet this is where your rage comes from Bats".

"Hilarious – you sure you're alright? The scarecrow venom should have worn off by now" the older crime fighting vigilante rolls his chair closer to the red haired woman, feeling her sweaty pale forehead "I think".

"Getting fear-gassed, shoved into a dinky crate and thrown into the ocean messes with your head a bit Bruce. So does spending three months in an underground bunker with an insane millionaire, his butler and his two adopted villain fighting sons" she sighs sticking out her tongue and laughing at the scowling superhero "I am a billionaire".

"Of course that's what you have an issue with… so in happier news I heard Superman was back in Metropolis" she giggles, the red-white-and-blue capped crusader was a perfect representation of everything Batman wasn't (invincible, loved, admired, honest, and adored by the majority).

Bruce grudgingly smiles at the young reporter "the alien invasion begins".

"Every time you smile a puppy dies Bats – is he… in the know?" she questions giggling and using Tim's lingo when referring to the current network between heroes. In the last five years meta-humans have been emerging from their hiding places all over America, draping themselves in colorful spandex and fighting crime. Out of the hundreds of obvious failures came a dominant group of heroes – each taking on a powerful mantel. They formed a network between themselves - a group – to discuss issues of global importance.

Elliot or Ell was one of those meta-humans however; her only true association to crime fighting was through reporting from the Gotham Gazette. That was in till she became mixed up with the mob and eventually the Bat family. Her meta-human gene did barely anything besides enhance her fighting capability – increasing reflexes, agility, flexibility, and strength. Although highly useless through most of her life recently with the intense Bat-family training she'd been put through she had finally realized how useful her genetics were.

"No, he's not in the know Elliot. He will be eventually" Bruce snickers kissing the young reporter on the forehead "I've got to give Flash a call – go to bed Ellie".

"Love you Bats!"

Ever since joining the fore mentioned Bat family there were a million things Elliot regretted –not knowing how to swim, not exercising more, not knowing how to stretch, her insane clumsiness, her fear of clowns and her fear of the annoying tape recorded laugh Tim played over and over again EVERY single bloody time she entered a dark room – but, the one thing she never regretted was figuring out Batman's secret identity.

The makeshift family that emerged from the incident was perfect and she couldn't be happier for it. If only the murderous thugs that put a contract on her life could see it that way.

The reason she begins her story here - a random day probably no where near the real beginning - is because it's the first time she realizes no matter how much she loves her crime fighting family she has to leave. She can't stay in the cave forever.

If only she wasn't such a coward.

If only she wasn't so afraid of Gotham.

If only the Batcave had a heater.

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**THE START - METROPOLIS  
**

Lois Lane sighs loudly and extravagantly catching the attention of her former partner Clark Kent.

"So-o-me-thin-in-g wrong Lois?" he stutters quietly pushing his coke bottle glasses further up his nose.

"Nothing is wrong Kent – there's a new girl coming into the office today. Junior reporter transferring from the Gotham Gazette, I can't believe the third rate trash Perry is hiring these days" she grumbles angrily massaging her temples.

"Well we do… need some more people around here Lois… after what happened last month" Clark quietly points out, after the recent 'earthquake' most of the junior reporters left the Planet pursuing other interests in less dangerous parts of the globe.

"Don't remind me Smallville" Lane gripes brashly making Clark blush in embracement "sorry Lois".

Shifting away from the tense conversation the mild manner reporter slinks back to his desk, another day and another obvious Lois Lane rejection. He feels sorry for whatever new reporter is about to join the office, it is always difficult being the new kid on the block – he still hasn't gotten used to the office environment and he's spent his whole professional life around the Planet (not counting the five years he spent traveling space).

Hearing the elevator ding Clark turns around and watches a small red haired woman stumble into the lion's nest. She looks disheveled and unbelievably nervous – her short shoulder length curly red hair is sticking out in all directions framing her freckled face and showing off her bright green eyes, her grey pencil skirt seems to be on backwards and her green blouse looks completely out of place.

She looks more like a college intern than a reporter Clark muses.

Lois is going to rip her to shreds.

At least he wasn't the 'new (back from a five year trip around the universe) kid' anymore.

Perry greets the girl with a firm friendly handshake and drops a large stack of paperwork into her lap the second she sits down.

Clark chuckles - a fitting start for a career at the Daily Planet.

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**A/N: Review and I'll continue!**


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